Finds’ has been thrilled to reissue four collections of short stories by the great Sylvia Townsend Warner, an endeavour which we were pleased to have endorsed by Sarah Waters, who told us last year that she rated STW as ‘one of the most talented and well-respected British authors of the twentieth century.’ Last weekend Waters expanded on this appreciation in a long piece for the Guardian, focused on the debut novel Lolly Willowes but considering many aspects of STW’s life, work, accomplishments and influence. It is a splendid tribute worth reading in full:
‘The intelligence of her writing has sometimes resulted in her fiction being misunderstood as difficult, and has perhaps lost her readers; she’s certainly one of the most shamefully under-read great British authors of the past 100 years… She remains [] relatively under-appreciated – a fact that baffles, frustrates and, I think, secretly pleases her admirers, for she’s the kind of novelist who inspires an intense sense of ownership in her fans. She has a special significance for lesbian readers, thanks not so much to the content of her work (only her fourth novel, Summer Will Show, can really be claimed as a lesbian text) as to the example of her life, nearly 40 years of which she spent in open, passionate partnership with another woman, Valentine Ackland. Both she and Ackland were writers and avid readers, and both were seriously committed to radical leftwing causes. Together they constitute a tremendously inspiring model of romantic, literary and political engagement.’
